Saturday 23 April 2011

Do androids dream of electric sheep?

Everywhere we go we leave electronic traces. If we walk in built-up areas we're captured on CCTV. If we drive we're caught on the ANPR system. If we carry a mobile phone we leave a trail in the logs of the cell towers. When we browse the internet we leave behind details of our IP address, ISP and city (see the Feedjit live traffic feed on this blog.) Use a cashpoint, credit or debit card and the time and location are recorded.

We're ok about this because we're comfy in our democracy. We have civil liberties, and the expectation of privacy. If someone has broken the law, then we're happy for the relevant authorities to order companies to release their data on the culprits. Since we're law abiding citizens we have nothing to hide, and hence nothing to fear.

Some freely choose to share itineraries and personal information on the internet, yet it is disturbing to be unwittingly "outed" by technology.

Take a photo with your smart phone and post it on the internet - you may find you've just released your precise location because your ever-so-smart phone encoded your GPS coordinates into the image metadata. Imagine the photo was of a high value item for an eBay auction - you might as well put a poster up on your front door inviting burglars in.

Apple have been in the news recently over reports that iPhones and iPads are tracing where their owners' take them. Apparently this is ok because Apple said they would do this somewhere in the 18 pages of Terms and Conditions that device owners accept when they take the shrink wrap off the box.

Google have gone one better with their Android phones. It seems that where ever one of these phones is taken it is busy sniffing out all the WiFi networks in reach. The MAC address, signal strength and GPS coordinates are then sent back to Google and published for anyone to see.

Do androids dream of electric sheep? No but they're dreaming of being your big brother.

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